


A Cleric's Faith

by j_whirl44



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, me grumbling: its my canon now, nothing in detail really, slight body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25003045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_whirl44/pseuds/j_whirl44
Summary: Zolf's always loved the ocean.
Relationships: Poseidon & Zolf Smith
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	A Cleric's Faith

Zolf is six years old when he sees the ocean for the first time. His family is taking a vacation of some kind. It’s a rare occurrence but his father had to meet with some people that Zolf didn’t recognize. They all wore the same ring as his father though, so Zolf thought it must’ve been okay.

It’s late at night when he sneaks away from his bed to be by the sea. He chases after crabs that walk along the sand and gives a delighted yell as the cold, foamy water hits his feet and shins, sending ice like sparks up his body.

He takes in a big breath of air and tastes the salt on his tongue. He looks out wide eyed at the sea. It’s pitch dark and he doesn’t know where the ocean stops and the sky begins but to Zolf it’s perfect.

It’s quiet and calm and Zolf positions himself on the sand, he takes fistfuls of it and watches it slip through his fingers. He can’t wait to bring his family here tomorrow. Maybe Fenryn will play with him and they can see who can make the biggest splashes in each other's faces. The young dwarf smiles at the possibilities as he takes in another deep breath of the salty sea air.

The quiet is interrupted by a bubbling in the sea. Zolf looks towards the noise and watches as a figure rises out of the water. He screams and scrambles to his feet as he backs up, almost tripping over his feet.

A woman appears. Her pale, almost blue tinted, skin glows in the moonlight. Her long brown hair curls and frames her face. She wears a crown of seaweed and has a band made of shells encircling her upper arm. Zolf’s never seen anyone so pretty and he stares in awe like any young child would.

The woman’s face is soft and she smiles at him. She lifts an arm out the water and gestures him to come closer. Zolf hesitates for only a moment before he begins to slowly walk back towards her. He sits on one of the rocks nearby and watches as the woman controls the water around her. She does tricks and routines that make Zolf clap and smile and he falls even more in love with the ocean at each passing moment.

Then she stops, takes a moment, and she opens her mouth. She lets out a string of whistles in a frequency Zolf’s not even sure exists. Then, as if by command, two dolphins appear next to her and begin circling around. They put on a show and Zolf claps after every trick. The dolphins come up to greet him and he laughs as he rubs their heads.

Eventually, the dolphins leave and the woman retreats back to the sea without another word. Zolf is left confused and a little sad. He looks down in his lap to see a small driftwood dolphin sitting in it. He smiles.

He sneaks out every night on that trip to try and see the woman again, but she never reappears. He wears the dolphin around his neck every day.

It isn’t until much later in life when Zolf first hears stories about Amphitrite and it doesn’t take him long to put two and two together. He holds on to that driftwood dolphin a little closer after that. He’s never stopped wondering if he’ll see her again.  
  


\---

He hasn’t really slept since he left Prague. He’s too afraid to; he feels too guilty. Most of the sleepless nights he just stares at his legs, trying to make sense of them. He hates how terrified he is of them. How they make him feel both honored and scared. 

He sits in the dark on the floor of his rented room at an inn somewhere in...gods he doesn't even know. Might be Switzerland, might be Italy. He left with no sense of direction and everywhere he looked for answers he was just met with the panic and confusion that he caused due to accidentally collapsing the world’s systems. So he hitchhiked. Threw money at whatever traveler would take it, which was a lot of them, and he ran.

Again.

He lets out a long sigh as he lifts his face towards the ceiling; he twists his eyes shut, but all he sees is flashes of everything that’s happened in the past weeks. He knows now there’s obviously bigger forces at play than what any of them anticipated and it was just all  _ too much _ . Mixed that with this feelings towards Bertie and the dreams from Poseidon and he Zolf felt like he was drowning. He couldn’t keep up. Leaving was the best course of action but damned if it didn’t hurt to walk away from Hamid and Sasha.

Especially when he told Sasha...he opens his eyes and starts to shake his head to keep the tears at bay. He couldn’t let himself think like that. It wasn’t fair to him, but then again when did he ever deserve to be treated fairly.

He drags himself off the floor and stiffly climbs into his bed. He closes his eyes but he’s begging himself to stay awake. It doesn’t work.

_ He’s on a small boat now. It’s even too small for him. It’s dark but the waves are calm. He has his oars on either side of him. His trident leans over the side, practically tipping the boat from its weight. _

_ Zolf can’t see a thing. There’s no shoreline to row towards and the overcast of the sky is blocking any sort of navigation usage from the stars. _

_ “Are you going to come out then or not? Hello?” he yells out. Silence follows. _

_ Zolf sighs and puts his head in his hands. He bites the inside of his cheek and digs his palms into his eyes to keep them from crying. He’s so tired and so confused and so over the games Poseidon is doing. _

_ He doesn’t know what’s worse about this dream, the fact that Poseidon never shows up, just leaves Zolf all alone in the middle of the ocean with no sense of direction, or the feeling Zolf gets that he deserves it somehow. _

He wakes up and his body stings all over. He’s crying and he doesn’t care to stop it as he goes about his day.

\---

He’s moved on again. He now lives in a small home in an unnamed town by the sea side in Germany. He’s picked up enough of the language to be useful to those around him, and he’s thankful for that.

There’s been some good days in those months. Days where Zolf helps a local healer because they’ve had an influx of patients. Those days he likes. Those days he gives a nod of thanks towards the sea before he heads to bed. Those days he reverently places the driftwood dolphin on his bedside table. Those days his legs feel normal.

Most of it has been bad days. Days where Zolf barely musters enough healing magic to help a woman with her sick child. Those days he hates. Those days he walks right up to the shore line and screams out to sea before he heads to bed. Those days he yanks the driftwood dolphin off his neck and throws it across the room. Those days he legs feel hot and burn him where the skin of his thighs meet the water.

Those bad days lead him to have the same dream.

_ He’s in a sinking ship. His crew around him cast overboard into the choppy waters. He hears them scream out to him but he can’t move. He’s stuck at the wheel of the ship and he tries desperately to steer them to safety. Somewhere his irate and brutal god can’t get them. _

_ But every time he fails and he sinks with his crew, he’s the last to drown as he’s always forced to watch the rest of them die before he does. _

_ One night, that same dream visits him, though he finds he can now breath underwater. He opens his eyes. He sees the darkness of water in front of him. He can just make out the figure as it comes further. The water’s already dark but the form walking towards him is somehow even dark. He looks up to see bright white eyes staring down at him. They’ve done this song and dance so many times before, but never while Zolf’s still underwater. He gulps but tries to keep his face neutral. _

_ Even though it’s a dream, Zolf doesn’t dare try speaking. He knows well enough that Poseidon could change this at any moment. _

_ Poseidon continues looking down at him. Zolf stares straight up. Then he feels a punch to his gut which propels him backwards hard through the water. He gasps and water enters his mouth. He swims up for air, but he doesn’t breach the surface before he wakes up. He coughs up water as he gasps for breath. _

He doesn’t put his armor on that morning. He wears a regular shirt, as well as the longest pair of pants he owns and a big pair of boots. His legs move slowly, fighting him against every step. 

He goes out and tries to find ways to help the town he’s in without use of his magic. It’s hard given his mobility is now back to where it was those first weeks before the catacombs, but he does it.

He repeats the same things the next day and the day after that.

Finally, he finds himself back on the beach. The waves are intense even at low tide. Zolf looks out at the horizon before he closes his eyes. He’s stiff and his hands are balled into fists.

He breathes in and out, opens his eyes, “Right. This isn’t working out then,” he says.

The wind whistles in his ears as he waits for a response. A crab walks through his feet, he snorts. “Fact is. I haven’t really tried to make it work all this time yeah. I don’t trust you anymore,” he pauses, considers, “I don’t think I ever did,”

There’s a waterspout forming in the distance that breaks down quickly. He continues, “I. Don’t Want. To serve you. Anymore. Look I-I’m grateful-yeah-of what you’ve done. You saved me all that time ago you...you helped me save my friends in Paris but I just....” he fades off when he sees the water get worse. He takes as big of a step back as he can manage but he keeps himself straight. He’s wearing the dolphin around his neck and he yelps in surprise as it gets hot, burning where it sits on his chest, but then it gets cold just as quickly.

He waits a moment to see if the waves settle back down. They don’t seem to. The wind in his ears is louder as well. He sighs and turns away back towards his home. He sleeps.

_ He wakes up on a shoreline he doesn’t know. He’s half way in the water and halfway baking in the sun that’s beating down upon him. He turns so he’s laying on his back now as he groans. He tries to move his bottom half but his legs, though still there, feel like cement. He’s stuck. _

_ He sits up and sees that Poseidon's just there, staring with those bright big white eyes as always. He stalks towards Zolf and stops just before the shoreline where he sits. If Zolf had to guess at the expression the sea god was making it’d be a mixture of anger and pity. Zolf just stares back, though he’s too tired and hot to put on the facades from earlier. Zolf’s terrified and he’s showing it. _

_ That makes Poseidon's featureless face smile a little. Zolf swallows a little bit of his fear and speaks, “What? Upset I’m leaving. Well...don’t think this changes anything. I said what I said and I meant it. We’re done. I-I can’t live in this fear anymore. You can’t make me harm anyone...anymore.” _

_ The water that his legs are submerged in begins to boil and Zolf bites his tongue to hold in a yell. He breathes out a low hiss.  _

_ As always, Poseidon says nothing. _

_ It’s then that he notices the dolphin around his neck. He reaches up and takes it off. He throws it through Poseidon's face. The god doesn’t react, but the boiling around Zolf’s legs intensifies. _

_ He lets out a cry of frustration then and feels his eyes prickle with tears, “Just take them. And go,” he says. He lays back down in the sand and focuses on the heat of the sun rather than the heat of the water. _

He wakes up. His legs are gone. His trident is in pieces by his bedside.

  
\---  
  


The world is ending. Zolf sees it from the outside of his window every day. Less people out and about. The sky hasn’t shown the sun in days. All the newspapers talk about now is riots and ruin. He feels like his nightmares are coming to life and he can’t help. It’s been months since he’s left Poseidon now. He still tries to help in the ways that he can. He wheels around the village and makes sure everyone's taken care of, though he steers clear of the ocean now. He still looks at it longingly at night when he can’t sleep. He tries to find comfort in the sounds of the waves but it’s just a reminder of the things he’s lost so most nights he sleeps with earplugs in.

He doesn’t expect Wilde to show up at his door a week later. The man looks tired and beaten down, his clothes are muted brows as opposed to the flashy oranges Zolf last saw him in.

“I need people I can trust, Zolf,” he says, “It’s a risk to even see you personally like this but take this as a gesture of good faith.”   
  
Zolf snorts, “You really need me? I don’t...your intel must’ve been old I mean look at me,” he gestures, “I don’t have my powers any more. Poseidon and I didn’t exactly work out.”

Wilde looks him over, “I admit your appearance surprises me, Mister Smith, but my offer and reasoning still stand. We need you. Things have...changed. You and your old companions are the only few I can trust and-” he stops, Zolf watches him close his mouth and tighten his jaw.

“The others are helping you then?” Zolf asks. Wilde’s silence gives him the answer. He sighs and rubs his hand across his face.

The two men stare at each other, neither moving a muscle. The storm raging outside serves as a reminder to Zolf that what Wilde’s saying is true. He knows he can help.  _ Hopes  _ he can help. He feels something in his gut telling him that going with Wilde is the right choice to make. Zolf nods his head and Wilde gives way to the smallest of smiles as he nods in return.

It doesn’t take long for Zolf to gather his things and he sighs as he looks around his small home one last time.

The future was uncertain, but for the first time in a long time, Zolf welcomed it. The feeling in his gut lingers and he feels it blossom into something as he heads off with Wilde.


End file.
